The family of Antonio Zambrano-Montes, the 35-year-old unarmed Mexican man shot dead by Washington state police officers Feb. 10, has hired civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump to seek justice in the incident, the New York Daily News reports.
Zambrano-Montes’ family, like Michael Brown’s familiy before them, believe that their loved one was subjected to excessive police force. Crump represented the family of Ferguson, Mo., teen Brown and rose to national attention after he became the lawyer who represented the family of slain Florida teen Trayvon Martin.
Zambrano-Montes’ fatal shooting was captured on video. In the footage Zambrano-Montes, a father of two, can be seen running across the street while at least three officers give chase—their weapons drawn. When Zambrano-Montes gets on the sidewalk, he turns around, appears to raise his hands and is shot several times by police officers.
According to the Daily News, the police said that Zambrano-Montes had been “hurling rocks” at them and that the man did not comply with the officers’ instructions to stop. The police also said that their initial attempt to subdue Zambrano-Montes with a stun gun did not work.
Washington police have confirmed that Zambrano-Montes was not armed with a gun when he was shot, although authorities are still investigating whether he had a rock in his hand, the Daily News reports.
“Zambrano-Montes had his hands up. Why did you have to shoot him?” Crump asked, according to the Associated Press.
“The family wants the truth out,” Crump told the Tri-City Herald. “That’s one of the things they called me for.”
Zambrano-Montes was an orchard worker who was left homeless after a fire destroyed his home. He did not speak English and was living in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant. According to the Daily News, his death has sparked outrage in Pasco, Wash., a town where more than half the population is Hispanic, and yet “few members of the majority population are in the police force or government.”
Read more at the New York Daily News.